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With its origins in a University of Bath initiative to reduce IT procurement costs for itself and other universities, the Athens project was conceived in 1996. Spun off from Bath University through the vehicle of charitable status, Eduserv was established as a not-for-profit organisation in 1999.

The service was originally named Athena after the Greek goddess of knowledge and learning; it is rumoured that the name change was partially caused by a common typo, but it was actually due to the name Athena being already trademarked (EU000204735).[3] It launched as 'Athens' in 1997 (UK00002153200);[4] the name changed to 'OpenAthens' in 2007 and was renewed as such in 2015 (EU013713821).[5]